“Police. Don’t move!” Brit yelled. Humphrey started backing away. Expecting the man to go for his gun, Brit’s finger tensed on the trigger.
But Stan didn’t reach. Instead he held his hands up. “Don’t shoot.” He fell to his knees. Then he stretched out on the concrete walk, obviously familiar with the routine.
Quarles glanced at Brit. “This is too easy.”
Brit didn’t like it either.
~
“Why do you want to know?” Tanya asked.
“I know it sounds crazy,” Cali said. “But remember me telling you that I felt like I knew that cop Anderson, the one who came to my place and was later killed?”
“Yeah,” Tanya said.
“Well, Mom told me to figure it out. I didn’t listen, but now I think I knew him from that meeting. What’s really weird is that I think Brit’s partner, the other detective that was killed, was there, too.”
“Oh, fudge. You don’t think that the At-Risk kids are involved in this, do you?” Tanya asked.
Cali slumped against Brit’s headboard. “I don’t know, but Mom said it would be important.”
“Okay,” Tanya said, not sounding the least bit put off by Cali’s weird confession. Maybe being Catholic really did help some people believe in ghosts. “Let me call around and see if I can find out for sure if it was them. It’s late, so it might be tomorrow, but I’ll call you ASAP.”
“Thanks.” Cali looked around the room and wondered if her mom knew she had figured it out.
~
“Damn.” Brit hissed after searching the truck again. No gun, no knife, no damn baseball bat. He did find what looked like bloodstains. CSI would go over the truck with a fine tooth comb. Pulling away, Brit could hear Humphrey singing a tune of innocence.
Brit stomped back over to where the handcuffed-Humphrey leaned against the hotel wall. “What about the old man at the jewelry store? I suppose you didn’t take part in that either.”
Humphrey seemed to choose his words wisely. “I was there. I’ll cop to that. But it wasn’t me who roughed him up. I even tried to stop them.”
“I suppose you didn’t beat up any of those old girlfriends either? Or rough up the guy at the last hotel, or the guard at the school. Why, you’re just a friggin’ angel, aren’t you?”
Humphrey’s eyes went bright with anger. “I never killed anyone. And those bitches deserved what they got. One came after me with a hammer and the other cheated on me.”
“I suppose Cali McKay deserved to get roughed up, too, huh?” Brit gritted his back teeth so hard he thought they would crack.
“I didn’t play rough with her. Well, maybe just a bit when she ran from me. But Cali’s different,” Humphrey snapped. “She’s special.”
“You’re damn right she’s different,” Brit said.
Humphrey scowled and rose to his feet. “What’s that mean?”
Quarles grabbed the man by his arm and held him back.
“You got a thing for my girl?” Humphrey asked.
Quarles gave him another jerk backwards.
But too late. Brit had Humphrey by the shirt and slammed him against the building. “She’s not your girl. From what I heard, she kicked your ass out the night you shot the .38 through her door and tried to kill her.” It took everything Brit had not to ram his fist into Humphrey’s face.
~
Adams was waiting when they got to the police station. The sergeant had called for a report, and when he got the news they’d caught their man, he’d come in.
Duke and Mark took Humphrey down to get him in the system. Brit and Quarles followed Adams to his office to give him the details.
“With no weapon, we’re really going to need to speak to his girlfriend,” Adams said, looking at Quarles.
“We’ll find it,” Brit spit out.
Adams glanced at Brit and then back at Quarles. “CSI will go over the truck. I read your report this afternoon about the security guard. You know how to get in touch with McKay, don’t you?”
Quarles nodded. “I think I can find her.”
“I’ll call you with a time tomorrow. Without a weapon for evidence, the DA will want to talk to her.”
Brit felt his gut knot.
“Fine.” Quarles said, a fine line of worry etched between his brow.
“I don’t want anything biting us in the butt on this one,” Adams said. “I want to take this guy down.”
“Not any more than I do,” Brit spouted out.
~
Brit glanced at his watch when he let himself into his house. Midnight. He removed his gun and dropped it on the fireplace mantel. Quarles, Duke, Mark, and the other two officers had gone out for a celebratory beer. Brit, much as Keith had done most nights when he was alive, had bowed out.
He needed to see Cali, to feel her next to him. Maybe then he’d stop second-guessing what he felt, second-guessing what she felt for him, and possibly what she felt for the man he’d put in jail tonight.